


An Excerpt From the Psi Corps Student Handbook (4)

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [69]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, China, Confucianism, Culture Shock, Ethics, Fix-It, Gen, Psi Corps, Sacrifice, Telepath culture, The Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars, The Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety, Worldbuilding, child sacrifice, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 07:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: An excerpt from the Psi Corps Student Handbook, the second in a series of chapters on sacrifice. (The first ishere.)We return to this particular tale, and its multi-faceted significance, many times over the course ofBehind the Gloves, first in the very next story, which describes how Natasha Alexander, Lyta's grandmother, came to be in charge of the secret Psi Corps research facility on Mars: the mysterious "Department Sigma."If there can be said to be a single underlying "theme" to this entire project, all ofBehind the Gloves, it is this, in its many forms:"We are fighting to save one another, and some must be sacrificed, if all are to be saved." (Dust to Dust)The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!





	An Excerpt From the Psi Corps Student Handbook (4)

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
>  _Behind the Gloves_ is an in-depth series exploring a different side of the Psi Corps from the one presented in canon. This collection of stories presents readers with history, context, and slices of the lives of relatable protagonists covering 150 years of canon history, from the inception of laws that segregated telepaths through the aftermath of the Telepath War. By providing readers with the "rest of the story," with a nuanced (and not "one-sided") presentation of facts and events, I demonstrate that canon is misleading, and the truth is not as it seems.
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!

_We have already studied[the story of Wu Meng](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10604910), the filial boy from ancient China who sat up at night, bare, letting the mosquitoes bite him so they would not harm his parents. But other sacrifices must sometimes be made, sacrifices not only of ourselves, but also of others._

_The classic Chinese text Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety illustrates this principle with the tale of Guo Ju. Although the story’s moral is controversial among normals today, it is not controversial among telepaths, who recognize that such sacrifices, painful as they may be, are sometimes unavoidable._

_Guo Ju and his family lived during the Han Dynasty. They were very poor, and did not have enough to eat. Guo Ju and his wife had a very young son. Because the family had so little food, Guo Ju’s mother would sometimes share her own portion with her grandson._

_One day, Guo Ju told his wife, “Why don’t we bury our son, so that our mother can have enough to eat? We can have more sons, but we can never have another mother.”_

_Reluctantly, his wife agreed, and Guo Ju went to dig a pit in the yard. But as he began to dig, his hoe struck something hard – a wok, filled with gold! Upon the vessel was written, “A gift from God to the dutiful son Guo Ju. The officials cannot rob it, and others cannot take it.” From then on, Guo Ju and his family always had enough to eat._

_What can we, in the Psi Corps, learn from this tale? Why do we include it here in your course reader? We include the story because its moral remains pivotal in a larger context._

_Some applications of the principle are metaphorical. All telepath parents “sacrifice” their children when they send them to live at school, in cadres, away from their families of origin. Why do we do so? It is not for lack of love for our children. As telepaths, we recognize that the Corps is our Mother and Father, and we are all "children" of the Corps, as we say in our morning pledges. Like Guo Ju, we always put our parents’ welfare before our own welfare, and that of our children. As painful as separation may be, we know that the cadre system helps to make the Corps stronger. A telepath’s first loyalty must be to the Corps and not to his or her blood parents or family. The cadre system is necessary for the greater good._

_Other times, our sacrifices are more literal. All telepaths remain children of the Corps, even when we are grown – and even if we go astray. It is a sad truth of the field that some rogue telepaths become violent criminals, and endanger the lives of both normals and other telepaths through acts of murder, mayhem and terrorism. Psi Cops must at times use deadly force to protect themselves, other telepaths and normals from these attacks. Though the Corps goes to extraordinary lengths to capture rogues alive, deadly force is sometimes unavoidable: if Psi Cops could not keep normals safe, then the Corps would be weakened, and the lives of all telepaths would be jeopardized. The Psi Corps charter maintains peace with normals, but that peace and freedom can only be sustained so long as the Corps can keep normals safe from telepath crime._

_Like Guo Ju, we find ourselves in an impossible situation – our parents, or our children. Our lives, or theirs._

_Sometimes, there is no other choice: we are fighting to save one another, and some must be sacrificed, if all are to be saved._ [1]

 

[1] _Dust to Dust_ (first spoken by G'Kar in reference to his decision to follow the advice of Delenn and sacrifice the lives of millions of Narn to the Shadows, so that billions do not die later, and then reprised at the end by Bester and his companion in the Psi Corps shuttle, in reference to... something relating to the drug "Dust," something which isn't explained in canon but which I explain later, beginning in the next chapter.)


End file.
